Robin Walters manages the credit risk for Sysco Corporation, the largest food distributor in the world. She uses CreditRiskMonitor to monitor the risk of Sysco's large public company customers and suppliers. CreditRiskMonitor provides timely financials, alerts, and risk scores that Robin relies on to set credit policy and report on Sysco's significant accounts receivable balance. Robin also uses CreditRiskMonitor's trade receivables data to gain visibility into Sysco's own accounts and payment risks across its decentralized organization. She praises CreditRiskMonitor's service and features like pre-spread financials that save her team time.

1. When Robin Walters, Manager, Corporate Credit Risk at Sysco Corporation goes out
to eat, you can be sure of one thing: She knows every piece that went into preparing and
presenting that meal. From ingredients to hair nets, candles, silverware, sugar packets
and to-go-packages, anything that’s needed for superior food service is supplied by Sysco.
Headquartered in Houston, Fortune 100 company Sysco is the largest food distributor
in the world. The company began with a promise: To assist food-service operators in
providing consumers for meals consumed away from home.
Tastes have changed since 1970 when Sysco first went public with $115 million in sales,
but the company’s mission hasn’t—and appetite for its offerings has only grown. Today,
Sysco is a $48 billion giant in an industry that has also expanded dramatically, from
$35 billion in the 1970s to more than $700 billion today. It’s the largest non-oil related
company in Houston and the third largest company in Texas.
Sysco services customers as diverse as schools, hospitals, hotels, movie theaters, even ca-
sinos. The company has relationships with more than 425,000 customers and operates
from 194 locations around the world.
Managing the Risk of Receivables: A “Huge Responsibility”
Robin manages the credit risk associated with all those customers and suppliers. Report-
ing to the Senior Director of Credit, Robin and her team run a credit function focused
on very large accounts, supporting Sysco’s global operating companies. They also ser-
vice a highly decentralized organization, including multiple smaller credit departments
around the world.
“We have a huge responsibility,” Robin says. “Our accounts receivable is the 2nd largest
line item on Sysco’s balance sheet.”
Guarding such a significant asset means setting corporate credit policy, negotiating vendor
pricing and monitoring bankruptcies—and reporting on the status of accounts receivable
to executive management, including the board of directors. Accuracy is non-negotiable.
“What we report goes to the SEC and the public,” Robin says. “It must be accurate.”
Given the variety of their customers and suppliers—Sysco works with companies from
“mom and pop” shops all the way through the world’s largest corporations—Robin
CUSTOMER PROFILE
At Food Service Giant Sysco, CreditRiskMonitor
Is the Essential Ingredient for Managing
Public Company Risk
704 Executive Blvd., Suite A, Valley Cottage, NY 10989 n T: 845-230-3000 n F: 845-267-4110 n www.creditriskmonitor.com
AT A GLANCE
Sysco Corporation, a $48 billion
Fortune 500 company—
the largest food distributor
in the world
User:
Robin Walters, Manager,
Corporate Credit Risk
Challenges:
• Guard the health of the
accounts receivable, a
huge asset, and report to
management on it
• Assess the upfront and
ongoing risk of large
customers
• Set overall credit policy,
negotiate vendor pricing and
monitor bankruptcies
• Support a decentralized
organization
Solution:
• Uses a variety of commercial
credit and business
information services,
targeted to account size
• CreditRiskMonitor is her
go-to source for public
company information.
Key Uses:
• Timely financials
• Alerts to material company
news and changes to the
FRISK®
score, along with
other scores
• Contributes trade receivable
data to analyze their own
accounts, providing visibility
into “hidden slow payers”
and risk levels

2. and team use a number of credit and business information
services to stay on top of their ever-changing risk levels. If
it’s public, there’s no question in Robin’s mind what to use.
“If it’s public, I won’t bother with anything other than
CreditRiskMonitor,” she says. “I use the site any time I have
a new customer, problem or issue. I love the tool and I tout
it every chance I get.”
A Recipe for Monitoring Large Company Risk
Robin’s process for public companies centers on a few key
ingredients: financials, alerts, scores and risk analysis of her
own trade receivables file.
Given Sysco’s focus on quality and accuracy, timely, cer-
tified financials are a must. CreditRiskMonitor is her go-
to-source for public financials, and she and the team also
collect financials directly from customers and suppliers. She
loves that CreditRiskMonitor “spreads” financials over time
without her and the team having to do it manually, saving
them hours of time and presenting a consistent, easy-to-
read format.
“I fell in love with it,” Robin says, referring to the spreads.
“It helped me make the case to my upper management—we
don’t have to spread them ourselves. Use the tool—it’s al-
ready done and already standardized.”
Alerts keep her current to new financials, critical news up-
dates and score changes. “I get alerts every day and look
for anything I didn’t know, particularly material informa-
tion,” she says. “I look for the financial statements as soon
as they come out. I also watch the FRISK®
score changes of
companies I follow and look to see why they are changing.
On big companies, we use both the FRISK®
score and the
Z-score in our decisioning processes.” (The FRISK®
score,
as way of background, is CreditRiskMonitor’s proprietary
score, highly accurate in signaling bankruptcy and related
financial stress.)
Seeing into their Own Accounts Receivable
Sysco also is one of the many customers who contribute
their trade payment receivables files to CreditRiskMonitor,
giving Robin and team a unified view into data from more
than 70 different systems. Even though it’s their own data,
they don’t have a single view of it across the organization.
The Trade Contributor reports give them new insight into
the risks and opportunities across their customer payment
files, presenting a dashboard view of their accounts orga-
nized by risk.
“I love the trade program and I use the hidden payer profile
all the time,” she says. “I like the views because we are so de-
centralized. I love that all my data is identified. I like to see
my data and how we compare. We might have an operating
company that asks to see if we do business with someone
and we can check. It’s very helpful.”
The “Secret Sauce:” Service
Finally, just as with a meal, service can make or break the
experience—and Robin calls out the service she receives as
a key differentiator. She makes a point of thanking her ac-
count manager, Jim Leech. “The service is fantastic! Jim is
GREAT. I always get prompt answers. I am very sensitive
to service. Some vendors bang on our door and disappear.”
She urges other customers to take advantage of the service
offered by their account manager, especially the opportunity
for a service walkthrough. “Go through the tutorial offered!”
she says. “You have no idea all the things you can do. You
are not going to stumble across all them. It’s really valuable.”
We thank Robin and Sysco! It’s an honor to be of service
to you.
704 Executive Blvd., Suite A, Valley Cottage, NY 10989 n T: 845-230-3000 n F: 845-267-4110 n www.creditriskmonitor.com
“We have a huge responsibility. Our
accounts receivable is the 2nd largest
item on Sysco’s balance sheet…
If it’s public, I won’t bother with anything
other than CreditRiskMonitor.”